Flight Paths

            The little girl stuck her head inside the door.  Yep.  It was empty.  Stepping inside, she shut the door, turning the cast iron doorknob—nearly as big as her head—as quietly as she could.

            She panned the room slowly, her brown pixie-cut hair shining in the sunlight that shone through the tiny window near the ceiling.  It did look different now.  She shoved the thick glasses higher up on her pert nose and looked harder.  Now she could see the dust balls atop the army green footlocker, the dirt clods clinging to the ramshackle plow, straw poking out of the stacked crates, ropes looped over rusty nails jutting out of the wall, dark gray lines netting the sides of clanky buckets like veins, the ridges circling the cane fishing pole leaning against the wall, empty dust-frosted preserve jars lining the rickety shelves, the delicate weave of her grandmother’s flower basket sitting empty on the bottom shelf of a drawered table.

            She shuffled across the concrete floor, listening to the grit scrape with every step.  Stopping, she leaned over and studied it.  It glinted in the slanted sunlight like little slivers of glass.  A black ant crept up to one and shoved it along like a tiny bulldozer.  At first she was startled; she had never seen an ant before, but now…  She shoved her glasses up again.  A whole bunch of ants darted crazily around the center pole of the old garage.  She skipped over but it was only an old dead roach lying on its back, so she sauntered back to the corner.

            For a while she roamed around with her head up, gazing at the pine rafters and silvery spiderwebs until she tripped over an old footlocker and sprawled over the top on her poochy stomach.  It was too bad glasses didn’t go all the way down her face.

            With the footlocker before her, she had found a new interest.  The lock hung open and she took it off and lifted the metal latch.  Her grandmother’s lace garden hat lay on top, a pair of gloves under its floppy brim.  Red and yellow flowered aprons with gnarled strings, a caramel colored walking cane, a yellow-stained baptismal robe, a pair of steel rimmed spectacles wrapped in a once-white lace handkerchief; she fished beneath all these before she found what she wanted—a huge rusty cowbell whose clang sounded more like a clonk.  She held it up to her ear and listened two times, three and another just for good measure.  Then she held it up over her head and watched the clapper swing from side to side.  So that’s how it worked!  She knew there was a metal jobbie in there but how it made the clonk was beyond the comprehension of her four year old mind—until now.

            She closed the top of the locker and set the bell on top.  Taking a step back to gaze at it, her heel landed on the rake tines and the handle slammed against the back of her head.  It was too bad glasses didn’t go all the way around her head, too.

            She set it up against the wall and looked at the floor.  It was really dirty.  And that big, hairy janitor’s broom leaned against the opposite wall just itching to sweep some.

            She took it by the middle of the handle and lugged it across the floor to the back corner.  It was longer than she was and she had to stand on her toes to reach the end of the handle, but when she pulled it down the broom end slid out so-o-o far in front of her.  After a half dozen pushes, she was worn out.  She yanked up her striped tee shirt and wiped the sweat off her face, sticking her finger up under the bridge of her glasses to get to her nose.  It was too bad glasses had to sit on her nose.  She brushed her hands off on her red corduroy pants and reached up for another swoosh.  That pile of dustballs, dirt, sawdust, and spider webs wasn’t big enough for her to quit just yet, even though a big red blister was rising on the inside of her thumb.

            But she only had time for three more swooshes before she had to stop and listen.

            “Denie!” came the call again.

            Oh well, she had just as soon stop anyway.  Something else needed tending to.  She had seen lines in her grandmother’s face.

 

I wrote that when I was 17.  It won a couple of prizes, but that’s not why I have posted it today.

I doubt that as a four year old I had any sense of other people’s troubles, but as a 17 year old I must have begun to see one of the biggest problems a trial in your life can give you—an inability to see the pain others are going through.  All you can see is your own.  All you can feel is your own.  All you care about is your own.

Contrast that to our Lord.  He led a difficult life, a poor man with no belongings, ridiculed by others and in danger more than once, yet all he did was serve anyone who needed him.  As he anticipated what was coming the night before his death, he taught his disciples, concerned about how they would handle what lay ahead.  As he hung on a cross in hideous pain, he worried about his mother, seeing to her care. 

How do we do when we are suffering?  Is it all about us?  Can we even tolerate hearing that someone else might be going through something even worse?  Believe it or not, I have seen people become angry when the attention shifts to someone else who is suffering, perhaps even more.  Is that how a follower of Christ, one who walks in his footsteps behaves?  Of course it’s difficult.  Of course you are in need of help and service.  But an attitude of selfishness that denies others the same help they themselves crave is inexcusable. 

My new glasses helped me see more than a blur of moving colors for the first time in my four years of life, yet, as the story shows, they had their limitations.  You could only see what was right in front of you.  “It’s too bad they don’t---“ fill in the blank, I have thought all my life.  Now I think, it’s too bad glasses don’t help us look inside our own hearts too.

 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2Cor 1:3-4

Dene Ward

A lot of folks think that there is no place for “order” in their religious lives, nor for orders, either.  Order, though, is an important concept in the scriptures beginning as early as Genesis.

            One would ordinarily think that when he reads, “Noah was 500 years old when he begat Shem, Ham and Japheth,” that the order in which the sons are listed is birth order: Shem was the eldest, the first of Noah’s “begetting.”  In fact, whenever Shem is found in any crossword puzzle I do, the clue is invariably, “Noah’s eldest.”  Not so fast—I can prove he was not. 

            Gen 5:32--And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  Noah had his first son at the age of 500.

            Gen 7:6--And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.  That means his eldest son would have been 100 at the time of the flood.

            Gen 11:10--Shem was one hundred years old and begat Arpachshad two years after the flood.  That means that Shem was only 98 at the time of the flood and could not have been the eldest.

            Then we have the case of Terah’s three sons, “Abram, Nahor, and Haran.”  Was Abram the eldest? 

            Gen 11:26--Terah lived seventy years and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

            Acts 7:4--Then [Abram] came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran, and from there, when his father was dead, God removed him to this land, wherein you now dwell.

            Gen 11:32--And the days of Terah were 205, and Terah died in Haran.  That means his oldest son would have been (205 minus 70 equals) 135 years old when he died.

            Gen 12:4--So Abram went as Jehovah had spoken unto him…And Abram was 75 years old when he departed out of Haran.  So since he left Haran after his father’s death, he was only 75 when the eldest son would have been 135.  Abram was certainly not the eldest son.  In fact, he could well have been the youngest.

            In the New Testament order is important as well.  We have “Barnabas and Saul” in Acts 12:25 and 13:2 and 7, until suddenly in 13:13 we have “Paul and his company,” and “Paul and Barnabas” from 13:43 on.  I think all those are enough to show us that in the Bible, people are listed according to their importance, and their amount of involvement in the activity in question.  Shem and Abraham, the ancestors of the Christ were certainly more important than their brothers, and Paul gradually took over as the leader of the missionary journeys.

            So why might that be important?  For one thing look at Acts 18:26, where we have a man named Apollos who was taught better by “Priscilla and Aquila.”  If the principle about order means anything, it means Priscilla did much more than just sit there and nod in agreement, and that of necessity means that it is possible for a woman to teach a man, at least in private, without violating the principle not to teach “over” a man, 1 Tim 2:12.

            “Order” meant a lot of things in the New Testament church.  They were commanded to do things “decently and in order,” 1 Cor 14:40.  Yet in the same context we find that they were shouting out hearty amens, 14:16.  That tells me we should be careful about imposing our own culture’s sense of order upon an order which God plainly approved.  If one reads the chapter carefully, we are once again talking about doing things in sequence—don’t let two talk at once, take turns; don’t let someone speak in tongues unless there is someone who can interpret afterward.

            Paul left Titus in Crete to “put things in order.”  Among other things that meant to appoint elders, Titus 1:5.  Think about this:  He had told Timothy that a new Christian was not suitable material for an elder, and he did not appoint anyone immediately upon that man’s baptism.  Yet, here is another sense in which “order” is important:  these men obviously set their lives in good order because in a relatively short amount of time, they had matured enough to take the leadership position.  Maybe the reason there are churches without qualified men today is that those men do not have their lives in a godly sort of order.  Everything—career, recreation, physical fitness, education--everything seems more important than time spent on spiritual growth, and that is the wrong order.

            Funny how many tidbits you can pick up by simply studying one word or concept in the scriptures, isn’t it?  Perhaps the most important tidbit today is this:  God expects us to put our lives in His order, to run our families in His order, to put the church, the body of His son, in His order; always His order, not ours.  Anyone who is “out of order” will be found in contempt of that righteous Judge.

For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.  Therefore as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving, Col 2:5-7.

Dene Ward

            Silas is afraid of dogs.  Who can blame him?  Most are as big or nearly as big as he is and the ones that aren’t have an attitude that is.  Dogs have big mouths full of pointy teeth.  They roar—which is what barks and growls sound like to a small child.  They nip when they play—which doesn’t keep it from hurting.  And licking you is just a little too close to eating you.

            So when he first saw Chloe, Silas’s reaction was to try to climb me like a tree.  No amount of reassurance that she wouldn’t hurt him sufficed.  But by the second day of watching her run away from him, his fear subsided.  In fact, he was no longer sure she was a dog.  One morning as he sat perched on the truck tailgate eating a morning snack and watching her furtive over-the-shoulder glance as she slunk under the porch, he said, “I’m afraid of dogs but I’m not afraid of that!”

            Yes, he decided, some dogs should be feared, but at only 5, his little brain had processed the evidence correctly:  this was not one of those dogs and he would not waste any more time or energy on it.

            Too bad we can’t learn that lesson.  We are scared and anxious about the wrong things.  “Use your brain, people” Jesus did not say but strongly implied in Matthew 6.  “God clothes the flowers; He feeds the birds.  You see this every day of your lives.  Why can’t you figure out that He will do the same for you?”

            Instead we waste our time and energy worrying about not just our “daily bread,” but the bread for the weeks and months and years ahead as if we had some control over world economies, floods, earthquakes, storms, and wars that could steal it all in a moment, as if we had absolute knowledge that we would even be here to need it in the first place.  And the kingdom suffers for want of people who give it the time and service it deserves and needs.  “God has no hands but our hands,” we sing, and then expect someone else’s hands to pull the weight while we pamper ourselves and our families with luxuries and so-called future security.

            And the things we ought to fear?  We go out every day with no preparation for meeting the roaring lion that we know for certainty is out there.  He is not a “just in case” or “”if perhaps.”  He is there—every single day.  Yet we enter his territory untrained and in poor spiritual condition, weaponless, and without even a good pair of running shoes should that be our only hope.  Why?  Because we are afraid of the wrong things and careless about the things we should have a healthy fear for; not because the difference isn’t obvious, but because we haven’t used the logic that even a five-year-old can.

            And what did Jesus say to the people who were afraid of the wrong things?  “O ye of little faith.” 

            What are you afraid of this morning?

“Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread, Isa 8:12-13.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell, (Matt 10:28.

“Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. ​For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations,” Isa 51:7-8.

​The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? Ps 118:6.

Dene Ward

Keith had to have some fairly serious surgery last year and since he is 90% deaf, the doctor arranged for me to be in his hospital room as his caregiver 24/7.  He does read lips fairly well, but lip reading is not the perfect solution to the problem.  He must “fill in the blanks,” so to speak, as his mind tries to interpret the sounds his ears miss, which is most of them.  It takes a lot of concentration, and when he is tired or does not feel well, he simply cannot hear at all.  But over the years I have learned how to communicate in all the various ways, from hand signals to pantomime to pointing at people or things to carefully wording without overdoing the mouth movements or using too many words. 

            So for six days we were both away from home and wouldn’t you know it, it was the height of garden season.  When we came home I had to do it all because he couldn’t even lift more than 10 pounds for two months, let alone bend over to pick vegetables or drag hoses.  That first week was the worst.  I picked every morning, sprayed the whole garden twice, (we’re talking an 80 x 80 garden here), pulled cucumber vines covered with blight, chopped out and hauled away the old corn stalks, placed folded newspapers under 50 cantaloupes so they wouldn’t rot on the ground (a very thin-skinned variety), cleaned out weed-choked flower beds, put up both dill and red cinnamon pickles, and picked and tossed 8 five gallon buckets of squash and cucumbers that did not have the grace to stop growing while we were in the hospital!

            Of course we all know that is not going to happen.  The plants continue to grow, the blossoms continue to set, and the fruit grows far larger than you ever imagined it could.  The back field looked like a marching band had gone through throwing out big yellow saxophones as they passed.

            It works that way with children too.  I can think of dozens of things we planned to do with our boys when they were little—things we never got to.  Sometimes it was a case of no money, but sometimes we just let life get in the way.  I wrack my brain trying to remember if there was anything we planned that we actually accomplished at all!  But just like gardens, children keep on growing.  They don’t stop to wait until you have more time to spend with them, or more resources to spend on them.  They won’t wait till you get a bigger house or an easier job or a raise.  They won’t wait until your life is exactly like you want it.  If that’s what you are waiting for, it will never happen.  You have to set your own priorities and make it happen.

            Every summer I made my boys a chore list.  I am sure they remember it fondly!  No, probably not, but on that list was this:  “Play a game with mom.”  Guess which “chore” they never skipped?  Sometimes it was checkers, sometimes it was monopoly, sometimes it was even pinochle, a game they learned with some of their dad’s commentaries set up on the table to hide their hands because they were too small to hold all the cards at once.  Sometimes it was one of the board games I made to help them with their Bible knowledge.  And every day we had Bible study of some kind, whether just talking about things between the bean rows as we picked together or a formal sit down study. 

            These are just some ideas to help you along.  We have all heard the old poem “Children Don’t Wait.”  It’s true, and last summer I thought about that even more as I looked out over the overgrown garden.  Maybe my grandsons will reap a little from the repeat of a lesson that is never taught enough.

And he said unto them, Set your heart unto all the words which I testify unto you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, even all the words of this law. For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life...Deut 32:46-47.

Dene Ward

Shortly after we got Chloe as a 9 week old puppy, we had a pile of dirt delivered.  Eventually it became the base for our carport slab, but for several weeks it sat there as we dealt with one problem after the other, most notably eye surgeries.  Chloe loved that pile of dirt.  She sat on top of it every day.  I suppose because she was little, it made her feel bigger, especially with an older dog who was not too friendly at the beginning.

            But she has continued to love sitting up high.  We often catch her perched on the landscaping timbers surrounding our raised flower beds, surveying her domain.  It may only be six inches higher than the field, but that is enough for her. Chloe will always love to be on top of her world.

            But even the highest she can sit does not help her see through the woods to the next property.  All she knows of the world is our small five acres.  She cannot comprehend that other dogs live in other places far, far away.  Sometimes she hears the neighbor’s dogs barking across the fence, through the woods and over the creek, and she sits up to listen, but when they stop, she forgets they are even there.

            Chloe’s world is Chloe-centric.  Despite the fact that we have a consciousness of others, we are much the same.  What happens to us is what matters to us.  How my life goes is the important thing to me.  That can cause us big problems when things begin to go wrong, just as it did for Rebekah.

“Why am I even alive?” she asked God when she began to have trouble with her pregnancy.  For twenty years she had been barren.  It was almost cruel of God, she must have thought, to give her what she had asked for and then make it seen that he was taking it back.  But God told her that she was not losing her baby.  Far from it, she was carrying twins, and this pregnancy was more far reaching than just fulfilling her desire to have a child.  Two nations would come from her, he said, and the older would serve the younger, Gen 25:23.  Yet even with those encouraging words, Rebekah still got it wrong.  She thought the prophecy was about her children themselves, not the nations that would come from them, and in her zeal to help God make it happen, she deceived her husband when the time came to bless those sons.  She forgot something as basic as this—maybe blind Isaac could not see whom he was blessing, but God could.  He did not need her help to accomplish his purpose, and his purpose is what mattered.

            We cannot see over the fence to know God’s purposes.  What happens to me, no matter how large it is to me, may be completely insignificant in the plan of God.  That does not mean He does not care about me.  It does not mean He is not listening to me and answering my prayers.  But it may very well mean that I will not understand the answer I get, or even like it much.  Sitting on top of my little dirt pile will not give me God’s perspective.  I simply trust, believe, and obey.  God knows what is best.  He really does sit on high.  He really does see it all.  That should be all that matters.

Who is like unto Jehovah our God, who has set his seat on high, who humbles himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth? Psa 113:5.

Dene Ward

            After a few years of working at it, my flower bed is now one mass of yellow every spring.  We planted a few of those daisy-style flowers known as rudbeckia several years ago and they have gradually increased over time.  The gallardia died off, the coreopsis moved to the back field, and even the “invasive” Mexican petunias have waned as the more commonly named black-eyed susans exercised dominance in the bed.  Even most of the weeds gave up.  These flowers are here to stay now, and they are gradually spreading, with just a little help from us, over other areas of the property.

            But come the end of June the stems turn gray and furry and the flower heads brown as they “go to seed.”  It’s a long couple morning’s work to pull them up and toss them out to the field southeast of the flower bed.  We’ve noticed over the years that things tend to spread to the northwest, and sure enough, if we toss things to the southeast we will get an even fuller bed the next year.  What would happen if we just left them?  Ugly, is what would happen, and that is not what flowers are for.  Something has to be done if we want them to continue to flourish.

            I’ve noticed the same about churches.  The longer you sit on your pews with no winds stirring, no rainstorms, no blight to kill off the weak plants, no insects to fight, no cultivating to uproot the weeds, the more likely you are to go to seed.  Every church needs a good stirring up once in a while if it wants to survive.  When a church starts to “go to seed,” it can get just plain ugly.

            I’ve seen a church become the property of one family, where visitors aren’t welcome and no one even thinks about reaching out to the community.  It’s just there for convenience as they “fulfill their Sunday duty.” (Amos 5:21-24)

            I’ve seen a church become so set in its ways that, while still claiming expediency, things are done in as inexpedient a way imaginable because it would upset anyone to change a tradition.  In fact, they come close to considering it a sin to even think of it. (Matt 15:7-9)

            I’ve seen a church become, not the pillar and ground of the truth, but a source of hatefulness and division.  They call it standing for the truth when it’s really just barring the doors to anyone who might need a little more help than the type of new convert they would prefer.  (I Cor 6:9-11)

            I’ve seen churches so interested in keeping peace, they sacrifice purity, or let an obstinate brother have his way, even if it hurts the mission of the church in that community, or a weaker brother. (James 3:17)

            I’ve seen so-called sound churches spout nothing but memorized catch-phrases and slogans with the requisite “proof-texts,” none of which they can explain or use in its true context.  They talk about “no creed but the Bible” while explaining to every visitor an unwritten creed of do’s and don’ts if you want to be accepted by “us.” (3 John 9,10)

            And I’ve seen many, many churches become so afraid of doing something wrong they never manage to do anything good.  (Matt 23:23,24)

            The first of July I start pulling up plants and tossing them to the southeast.  Then Keith will come along a day or two later and run the mower over those old plants to help disseminate the seeds for next year.  For a while my bed looks pathetic, but soon it will be a sea of bright yellow waving in the spring breeze once again, in fact, it will be fuller and brighter than ever.  That will only happen after I turn it upside down and inside out.  Maybe a few more churches need to do the same thing.

And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment learned by rote, therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden,” Isa 29:13-14.

Dene Ward

 

            It came up in conversation the other day when we were discussing the catbird at my feeder.  Where did the expression, “sitting in the catbird seat,” come from?  So I looked it up.

            It is a distinctly American expression, probably because the gray catbird is a North American bird.  Catbirds like to sit in the highest branches of the trees to sing and display.  The expression has come to mean being in a superior or advantageous position.  One of the first uses found is in a story by James Thurber in which he talks about a batter in a baseball game being “in the catbird seat” with three balls and no strikes. 

            You know the problem with being “in the catbird seat?”  You can get a little too sure of yourself.  Obadiah prophesied against the nation of Edom, a country full of mountains, whose inhabitants lived high above any who would try to attack their nearly impregnable rocky dwellings.  The pride of your heart has deceived you, O you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; who says in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?  Though you mount on high as the eagle, and though your nest be set among the stars, I will bring you down from there, says Jehovah, Oba 1:3,4.

            The Edomites, though they were brothers of the Israelites through their father Esau, had forgotten that Jehovah made those very mountains they counted on.  That meant that He could destroy them with a word if He were of a mind to, and He was.  The Edomites were subject to Israel off and on throughout history, and were finally run out of their land completely by the Nabataeans. 

            It is easy for us to perch ourselves high above others and “display.”  Like the Jews in John 8, we want to boast of our spiritual heritage and our quest to follow the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  We are Abraham's seed, and have never yet been in bondage to any man: how do you say, You shall be made free? John 8:33.

            They bring it up again in verse 39 and Jesus answers, If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.    Abraham would have denounced them all.  What would he say to us, who are supposed to be “Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise?” Gal 3:29, when pride causes us to place ourselves above the rest of the religious world as if we were more deserving of salvation.  Jesus warns, For everyone that exalts himself shall be humbled; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted, Luke 14:11.  Just like those Edomites of old, God can bring us down off that catbird seat.

            He can do that because that is where He dwells.  Jehovah is exalted; for he dwells on high: he has filled Zion with justice and righteousness, Isa 33:5.  We count on Him, not on ourselves.  Jehovah also will be a high tower for the oppressed, A high tower in times of trouble, Psalm 9:9.  Just as the imagery in Obadiah, He is a high steep place where we are removed from danger. 

            And in a Messianic passage he tells us that He will take us to new heights. And Jehovah their God will save them in that day as the flock of his people; for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted on high over his land, Zech 9:16.  As children of the Most High God we have an exalted position nothing on this earth can possibly match.

            Sitting in the catbird seat is a good thing.  Just remember who put you there.

Yea, they shall sing of the ways of Jehovah; For great is the glory of Jehovah. For though Jehovah is high, yet he has respect unto the lowly; But the haughty he knows from afar, Psalm 138:5,6

Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.  So read parts 1 through 3, click on guest writers on the right sidebar and scroll down.

Yes, this is a legitimate question, despite Job saying that he repents in 42:6. After all, the word repent only means to change course and does not necessarily imply sin. For example, in Genesis 6:6 God repents of having created man. In Ex. 32:14 it says that the Lord, "repented of the evil which he said he would do unto his people." Since we know that God can't sin, then repenting doesn't necessarily imply that a sin occurred. It might simply imply that a person changed his mind or his planned course of action. However, since Job repented "in dust and ashes" it seems that he was repenting of a sin. If he was merely changing course then dust and ashes would hardly have been necessary. This was mourning added to repentance. 

So it seems Job sinned. Ok, when? We know he got through the initial shock of his trial without sin (1:22, 2:10). Most put it in his final speech, chapters 29-31. After all, he says some pretty shocking things about God in this speech. When we read it, we almost flinch back from the page in fear of being too near when the thunderbolt hits. Job 30:20-23 "I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me. You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me. You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it, and you toss me about in the roar of the storm. For I know that you will bring me to death and to the house appointed for all living." Even worse is 31:6 "Let me be weighed in a just balance, and let God know my integrity!" Is Job actually implying that God might not be just when He judges Job?! Good grief! Surely this is where Job sinned.

Except it's not. And, yes, I can be very positive about that. You see, the same language -- if not worse -- is used in the Psalms and in other poems of lamentation by inspired writers. For example: Ps. 73:13-14 "All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning." Psa 13:1-2 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. "How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?" Psa 35:15-17 "But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered; they gathered together against me; wretches whom I did not know tore at me without ceasing; like profane mockers at a feast, they gnash at me with their teeth. How long, O Lord, will you look on? Rescue me from their destruction, my precious life from the lions!" Psa 35:22-23 "You have seen, O LORD; be not silent! O Lord, be not far from me! Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication, for my cause, my God and my Lord!" Asaph claims that to live righteously is vanity since he is punished anyway. Is this not hinting that God is unjust? David continually asks "How long?" wondering why God isn't meeting out justice and implying that following God doesn't pay off. God just watches why we suffer.

This is idea for idea, if not word for word, what Job is expressing. And the psalmists were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write those words. So those words CAN'T be sin. Expressing doubts to God, crying out to Him in agony, asking why and saying that none of this seems fair is not sinful, because God inspired people to write down those expressions to Him, and God cannot sin or cause to sin (James 1:13). In fact, it seems that God wants us to bring those thoughts to Him. He wants us to cry to Him, to express our pain to Him. He even wants to hear our doubts and our disappointments in Him, and the times we are angry with Him. Maybe because if we are expressing those feelings to Him, then we are still talking to Him. (How great is our God that He doesn't get so easily offended like all the gods in mythology, but rather welcomes our expressions of pain and doubt! He cares how we feel and wants us to tell Him.) So, if we are hurting for some reason, if we don't understand what is happening in our lives and why God is allowing the bad things to happen we can go to Him with those questions. We don't have to be afraid to express doubt, discouragement, fear and/or confusion to our God. He wants us to tell Him and He showed us so in His inspired word. And that is awesome. 

Well, then, when did Job sin? At the end of chapter 31. Chapter 31 is written in the style of an official defense in a court during Job's time. He gets carried away in his proclamations of innocence and begins to demand God's answer rather than pleading for it. He even challenges God to indict him. Job drops his humility before God and proclaims that he will march in before God and tell Him what's what. Job 31:35-37 "Oh, that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me!) Oh, that I had the indictment written by my adversary! Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; I would bind it on me as a crown; I would give him an account of all my steps; like a prince I would approach him." When God answers Job in chapters 38-41 it is this defiance of Job that is repeatedly rebuked (38:3, 40:2-3, 7-8). None of Job's other questions, expressions of anguish or disappointment, or confusion are ever mentioned. 

So, when we are hurting it is ok to be afraid, to be confused as to why God is allowing these things to happen, to be disappointed in God's lack of action, to question why, why, why and to take those questions and thoughts to Him. It is not ok to forget our place, to demand action from God and to declare that we know better than He. If we go down that road we might just wind up in the "dust and ashes."

Lucas Ward

            I’m seeing a lot my brothers and sisters running around beating their breasts and wailing like Chicken Little, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” The world is about to end, they are sure.  All is lost for the people of God.  Nonsense.

            And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here: for God did send me before you to preserve life, (Gen 45:4-5.

            Would you have thought twenty years before that statement that God was doing anything?  Here is the one He has sent to preserve the chosen people of God, the forbears of the Messiah, and he is sold as a slave and then falsely accused and thrown into prison and forgotten by the man he helped.  And now those chosen people are in danger of death from a famine.  But yes, God was accomplishing exactly what He set out to do, using the imperfect and illogical actions of men.

            Years later the people of God are under constant attack from marauding Midianites who regularly swoop in and take the produce of their farming and herding, leaving them barely able to survive and afraid to perform even menial day to day tasks.

            Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor,” Judg 6:11-12.

            O mighty man of valor?  A man so scared he is trying to thresh wheat deep in a winepress?  A man whose first task he would only try in the middle of the night?  A man who needed sign after sign to reassure him?  And then he has only an army of 300 against a host of 135,000 (Judg 8:10)?  Yes, that was the man and the method God chose and that man ultimately came through, delivering the people and acting as judge for forty years after.

            They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against your treasured ones. They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more!” For they conspire with one accord; against you they make a covenant-- Ps 83:3-5.  Imagine how it looked to the few faithful throughout Israel’s history—the 7000 who did not bow their knee to Baal, the righteous remnant that watched as the city of God fell to invaders who performed sacrilege after sacrilege to prove that their god was more powerful than Jehovah.  And that is exactly how it looked.

            And then think of those disciples as Jesus was carried away, tortured, and killed.  Here was the Messiah, they believed, and how could this be happening?  They had placed all their hopes in him and now that hope was lost.

            But that too turned into the most unlikely victory—11 men standing on a mountain wondering how in the world they could fulfill the mission they had just been given.  Once again God managed, not to just eke out a victory, but to overwhelmingly conquer as Christianity swept the world. 

            Did they give up when persecution hit them almost immediately?  Did they give up thirty years later when Nero tried it again? Or the next time, or the next?

            Just who do we think God is?  He is not a loser.  He is in control.  His ways are not ours—surely you’ve quoted that verse yourself.  It may look like things are going south, but what has happened throughout history, over and over and over?  GOD WINS.  The victory is not always easy for His people.  Sometimes they are hurt.  Sometimes they die.  Sometimes they die horrible deaths.  When you committed your life to Him, what did you think you signed up for?  Comfort and ease?  Riches and popularity? 

            Stop wailing and whining because things are bad.  The first century church came into a world every bit as bad—or worse!  It was a hard victory, but it was a victory.  Some of them celebrated it in another plane, and that may yet be our future too.  But do not ever doubt who is in control and who will win. 

Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures throughout all generations…Psalm 145:13.

Dene Ward

            I wish I had a dollar for every hour I have sat in waiting rooms in the past ten years, especially at the eye clinic.  I had a 3:30 appointment once, and finally saw the doctor at 7 pm.  Then there was the time we discovered that I needed an emergency procedure.  My appointment had been at 11:00.  I was finally pronounced fit to leave at 5:30. 

            The shortest amount of time I have ever spent at the clinic is two hours.  Sometimes the doctor is overbooked because he has critical patients who simply must be seen that day; I have been one of those patients.  Sometimes he runs late because an emergency arrives that must be worked in; I have been one of those emergencies.  I can hardly complain when someone does it to me.

            Yet, even the night I had to wait until 7:00, I never doubted that I would be seen.  I have never worried that someone would forget I was there and the doctor would leave.

            It makes no sense to doubt God either.  Sometimes we must wait a long time for the answer to a prayer, but it will come.  Sometimes we must endure a trial far longer than we ever expected, but He has not forsaken us.  How long did those faithful Jews wait for their Messiah?  I have never waited that long for God, have you?

            The world thinks that because the promised second coming has not happened in 2000 years it won’t happen at all.  They think that proves God doesn’t even exist, completely ignoring the evidence of His existence all around them.  That makes about as much sense as me deciding my doctor doesn’t exist because I have been sitting here waiting for three hours now, and my fellow patient in the next seat has waited four.

            My doctor is worth the wait.

            If ever anyone was worth a longer wait, it’s God.

Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God; by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, 2 Pet 3:3-9.

Dene Ward